1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information recording method and apparatus, and an information reproducing method and apparatus for recording/reproducing information signals, such as moving picture data for a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a filing system for a personal computer for controlling e.g., a conventional hard disc drive (HDD), the main theme has been to handle inherently discrete text data. The result is that, in such file system, such a file is produced in which, due to the recording/reproducing operations, logical addresses are constituted by non-contiguous sectors, thus producing file fragmentation due to recording/reproducing operations.
Meanwhile, in recording/reproducing temporally continuous AV data, such as acoustic or moving picture data, by an HDD, the continuous data transfer rate is crucial. However, if the file is recorded/reproduced by the above-described file system, the overhead indicating the management information such as recorded sector numbers, is voluminous, due to file fragmentation, thus consuming a lot of time for recording/reproduction to render it impossible to assure the minimum continuous data transfer rate. If it is impossible to assure the continuous data transfer rate, there may arise an inconvenience that the inherently temporally continuous AV data cannot be reproduced temporally continuously.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an information recording method and apparatus, and an information reproducing method and apparatus for recording/reproducing temporally continuous AV data without producing the above-mentioned fragmentation.
In one aspect, the present invention provides an information recording apparatus including a disc-shaped recording medium at least having a management information region and a user data region made up of a plurality of logical blocks, and recording means for continuously recording information signals in the user data region of the storage means from a recording start logical block to a recording end logical block and for again recording the information signals from the recording start logical block.
With the present information recording apparatus, information signals are continuously recorded by recording means in the logical blocks of the disc-shaped recording medium.
In another aspect, the present invention provides an information recording method for recording information signals on a disc-shaped recording medium at least having a management information region and a user data region made up of a plurality of logical blocks, including continuously recording information signals in the user data region from a recording start logical block to a recording end logical block of the disc-shaped recording medium and again recording the information signals from the recording start logical block.
With the present information recording method, information signals are continuously recorded in the logical blocks of the disc-shaped recording medium.
In a further aspect, the present invention provides an information recording/reproducing apparatus including a disc-shaped recording medium at least having a management information region and a user data region made up of a plurality of logical blocks, recording means for continuously recording information signals in the user data region of the storage means from a recording start logical block to a recording end logical block and for again recording the information signals from the recording start logical block, and reproducing means for reproducing information signals stored in the recording means. The recording means and the reproducing means records information signals in the user data region of the disc-shaped recording medium, while reproducing the information signals recorded in the user data region of the disc-shaped recording medium.
In this information recording/reproducing apparatus, information signals are continuously recorded in logical blocks of the disc-shaped recording medium, while continuously recorded information signals are reproduced.
In yet another aspect, the present invention provides an information recording/reproducing method including continuously recording information signals from a recording start logical block to a recording end logical block on a disc-shaped recording medium having a management information region and a user data region made up of a plurality of logical blocks, and again recording information signals from the recording start logical block, and reproducing the information signals recorded in the user data region of the disc-shaped recording medium.
In this information recording/reproducing method, information signals are continuously recorded in logical blocks of the disc-shaped recording medium, while continuously recorded information signals are reproduced.
In the information recording method and apparatus of the present invention, the information signals are continuously recorded from the logical block of the leading end logical address to the trailing end logical block and are again recorded as from the logical block of the leading end logical address, thus enabling data to be recorded temporally continuously in the user data region. Thus, with the present information recording method and apparatus, continuity of recorded data is assured, there being no risk of fragmentation of recorded data. Since no data fragmentation is produced, the data overhead can be reduced to improve the continuous data transfer rate during reproduction.
Also, with the information recording/reproducing method and apparatus of the present invention, information signals are continuously recorded from the continuously recorded from the logical block of the leading end logical address to the trailing end logical block and are again recorded as from the logical block of the leading end logical address, while the information signals recorded are reproduced. Thus, with the present information recording/reproducing method and apparatus, continuity of the recorded data is assured, while information signals can be reproduced temporally continuously. Thus, with the present information recording/reproducing method and apparatus, there is no risk of fragmentation produced in the recorded information signals. Also, with the present information recording method and apparatus, since no data fragmentation is produced, it is possible to reduce the overhead of the information signals, thereby improving the continuous data transfer rate during reproduction. In addition, with the present information recording method and apparatus, the user data region of the recording medium can be split into plural regions for recording/reproduction, the frequency of recording can be hierarchized, thus realizing diversified application.